


Martine

by ama



Series: The Home Front [2]
Category: Band of Brothers
Genre: Diners, Friendship, Gen, Post-Canon, Waiters & Waitresses
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-30
Updated: 2014-11-30
Packaged: 2018-02-27 12:32:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,729
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2693114
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ama/pseuds/ama
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The bond between a customer and his favorite waitress--or a waitress and her favorite customer--is often overlooked, but strong.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Martine

“Well, well, well, if it isn’t Mr. Scrambled Eggs, Blackberry Jam on White Toast and a Café au Lait.”

Gene looked up with a smile and set the menu down.

“I was thinking of getting something new this time.”

“Now I know _that_ ain’t true,” Martine chuckled as she set a steaming cup of coffee in front of him.

The diner was nearly empty, and she paused by his table for a minute to chat. Gene had met Martine when he first moved to Baton Rouge, a quiet, nervous kid taking any job he could find—including ones that often got him up before the dawn. He _could_ get up early, but those days he wasn’t eating too well and he was often a lot more tired, so one morning he gave himself a bad burn while trying to make breakfast, and decided he had better use some of his precious pennies to have someone else cook for him. As the months passed, he got better jobs, sleep, and cooking abilities, but he still came. They made fantastic jam.

He liked Martine, too. She was a short, clever-eyed Creole girl in her twenties who had taken an instant liking to the skinny Cajun kid yawning his way through breakfast; she claimed that he was a lot like one of her brothers. Every once in a while he would come in and sheepishly admit that he had been mugged the night before, or come off on the wrong side of a fight with his landlord, and as such could only afford a coffee with none of the usual accompaniments. She would roll her eyes, fetch him some biscuits, and teach him what life was like in the big city, since she had grown up there. He repaid her by washing dishes or parroting medical advice learned from his grandmother, although at the time he hadn’t understood most of it.

“So where’ve you been?” she asked as she leaned against the booth partition. “We’ve been taking bets; the cook thought you’d died and the busboy thought you’d moved to Los Angeles. Least he did up until ’bout six months ago, when _he_ moved to Los Angeles. Did you meet him out there?”

“No miss,” Gene laughed, trying to think of any other place that was _less_ like Bastogne. “I joined the army. I was in training for a couple of years over in Georgia, and since then I’ve been in Europe. Only got back about four days ago.”

“Were you?” Martine asked, and her eyes widened. “Bless me, cher, I never would have pictured you as one for fighting like that, not a little fella like you—no offense,” she grinned, and Gene chuckled.

“Hey, I got through physical training the same as the rest of them. But to tell the truth, I didn’t do much fighting at all; I was a medic. With the 101st Airborne Infantry Division.”

For a moment Martine looked impressed, and then another customer entered and she went to go see to them. There was a small rush of people, and the waitress didn’t return until Gene’s food was ready. She was carrying three orders of beignets on a tray that she dropped off first, and Gene noticed that her hand was shaking slightly. He frowned; Martine was as strong as any woman he knew and he never seen her wobble before. As she walked closer, he noticed three bandages taped side-by-side on her forearm, pale against her dark skin.

“What happened to your arm?” he asked as she set down his breakfast.

“Oh, shoot, that clumsy cook just broke a plate—ain’t nothing to worry about. You enjoy your food, all right?”

“No, here, lemme take a look.”

With a dramatic sigh, Martine put down the tray and held up her arm. Gene carefully pealed back the bandages, and then sucked in air through his teeth sympathetically. The cut was too long and too deep to be patched up with a couple of drugstore bandages; with the uncanny accuracy of one who had had a lot of practice, he could tell that it would probably leave a faint scar, although it didn’t need stitches.

“Did you put anything on it?” he asked as he fumbled in the bag next to him. It wasn’t a medicine bag, per se, just an ordinary knapsack, but the day before Gene had left the house to go visit some of his parents’ friends, and he had been nearly panicking the whole time. He couldn’t help but obsessively check his hip, trying to catalog supplies he _should_ be carrying, and so on the way home he had stopped into a store and picked up nearly everything a medic could desire. Scissors, bandages of all shapes and sizes, sulfa powder, medical tape, a needle and thread, a tourniquet.

He didn’t have any morphine, but that he could live without.

“Ran it under the water for a minute,” Martine said with a shrug. “You said you was in the airborne, right? That those boys who jump out of airplanes?”

“Sure is,” Gene said with a bit of a grin as he pulled out a packet of sulfa powder and sprinkled it liberally over the woman’s arm. “Nobody ever said we were the smartest soldiers, but just between you and me we were the toughest.”

“I don’t doubt,” she smiled. It flickered slightly as Gene took out a roll of bandages and began to tie it around her arm—tighter, this time, applying more pressure. “You know, my oldest brother, Louis, he was in the army. Driving cars and things, mostly. Last year, ’round Christmas, his truck got hit by—what do you call them, the little bombs?”

“Artillery,” he said. His voice was a little hoarse, and he cleared his throat. “I’m real sorry to hear that.”

She waved him away absently.

“Auguste, he’s the next oldest, he got so mad you wouldn’t believe. He was 4F, but he tried to enlist straightaway. Said he wanted to make his brother proud.” Martine was quiet for a moment as Gene finished tying the bandage, and then she stirred. “Anyway, he’s a lot like you. Thinks before he speaks, you know. He would have made a fine medic, if he weren’t 4F, I think.”

“How does that feel?” Gene asked as she lifted her forearm to inspect it.

“Better.”

“Try to use your other arm, if you can. If you can’t, always go for a tight bandage. Keeps the pressure on, makes it easier to use. Lot of my guys didn’t like listening to instructions, so I had to do the best with what I could.”

Martine stood with a smile and picked up her tray.

“You’re good at this, aren’t you? Ever think of doing it for a living?”

He glanced at his knapsack and shook his head, trying to stave off the embarrassment.

“I, uh, didn’t have much schooling. I couldn’t go to medical school or anything like that; all I’ve got is a bit of army training. I don’t think I’m cut out to be a doctor.”

“But you like helping people,” she pressed.

“Yeah,” he said, examining his hands.

It was strange, being back. Sitting in the same café, chatting with the same people, but chatting about war and medics and paratroopers, with a fake medic’s bag sitting next to him. Doc Roe, the medical technician attached to E Company, had belonged in Toccoa, Bastogne, and Hagenau. Eugene Roe, who worked in construction and ate toast with blackberry jam and visited his grandmother’s grave on the first Saturday of every month, belonged in Louisiana. They were different people. At least, they were supposed to be.

“Well it’d be a shame to give up on that, to my mind,” Martine said in a soft voice. There was a small pause and then her voice took on a louder, more casual tone again. “You know, I didn’t do too well at school—it never really interested me none—but I always like writing. Poems and things.”

“Really?” Gene said, with a genuine grin, and Martine nodded, her eyes twinkling.

“Mm-hm. Nothing fancy, just limericks and little songs and the like. And just ’cause I’m not Shakespeare, it doesn’t mean my brothers don’t like my songs, or my boyfriend doesn’t work himself half to death trying to write better love letters.” He laughed at that, and she winked. “My mama always says that a job is meant to keep you and your family fed—passion’s meant to keep your soul fed. You’ve gotta do both if you’re looking to take care of yourself.”

In Bastogne, he had thought being a medic might be starving his soul. Offering him the chance to heal people and then stealing it away. He glanced at the bandage at Martine’s arm and then at her eyes, which were soft and understanding and familiar. Unthinkingly, he reached out and took her hand, squeezing her fingers gently.

“Merci—I’ll think on that. Can I see your pen real quick?” She handed it over and he scribbled his name, phone number, and address on a napkin. “Here, take this. If you or any of those brothers of yours scrape their knees or sprain their ankles or get trench foot or something, you get a hold of me. The more serious stuff, that’s a job for real doctors, but if it’s not too bad then I can handle it for a whole lot cheaper.”

“I’ll keep that in mind,” Martine said, and she slipped the napkin into the pocket of her apron. “And even if I don’t take you up on it, expect a Christmas card. I’ll leave you to your breakfast, cher. You have a good one, you hear?”

Gene smiled and turned to his breakfast. It was every bit as good as he expected, and made even better when he tried to ask someone for a check, only to be informed it had already been paid. He tried to insist, but Martine and the cook and the new busboy and two of the regulars sitting at the counter all insisted. He had no idea which one had paid for him, so he gave in, thanking them all profusely, and walked out with his makeshift medic’s bag sitting comfortably on his hip and contentment resting on his skin like sunshine.


End file.
